As polling day approaches in Makerfield, Sam Colclough outlines Burnham’s prospects and the perils of a Reform victory

This week’s by-election in Makerfield is undoubtedly a big moment in British politics. If Reform wins, it receives a huge shot in the arm as it builds towards the next general election, currently scheduled for 2029. Not only would it further signal the party’s rise in popularity, but by beating Labour’s alternative leader Andy Burnham, it would also cement its position as favourites to form the next government.

A twice-defeated Labour leadership candidate, Burnham’s star has risen in recent years following his decision in 2017 to leave Westminster and stand for Mayor of Greater Manchester. Being based in a different political institution from the largely-despised House of Commons has doubtlessly helped, but Burnham’s profile and popularity rose when he was seen to stand up for Manchester against the Tory government during the pandemic.

While the epithet ‘King of the North’ – commonly found in media reports on Burnham – surely overstates public support for him, many in the Labour Party feel he is their last hope of defeating Reform. If he wins on Thursday, he’s likely to become the next Prime Minister in the coming months, and that theory will be put to the test. A defeat for him in Makerfield would dash Burnham’s leadership ambitions for a final time while leaving the Labour Party in a state of paralysis vis-à-vis the Reform threat.

The outcome of the Makerfield by-election will have a significant impact. But the question of how to beat Reform obviously doesn’t apply solely to this parliamentary election, especially given socialists are primarily interested in that election precisely because of the wider impact it’ll have. The bigger question is how to defeat Reform nationally, but first it is important to address the question: what is Reform?

What is Reform?

In order to defeat Reform, we must understand what it is. The answer to the question ‘What is Reform?’ is hugely consequential when it comes to socialist strategy. If it is an overtly fascist formation and the likely result of it winning the next general election will be the transformation of British society and the British state into fascism, it follows that for socialists the number one priority must be to build the anti-fascist movement. On the other hand, if it is simply a slightly more right-wing version of the Conservative Party and its election would see very little deviation from the political orthodoxy of at least the past fifty years, socialists ought to dedicate very little time responding to it and seeking to defeat it as a unique political phenomenon.

Both of those positions exist on the British left, and both are problematic for opposite reasons.

To understand what Reform is, and thus how we respond, it’s useful to think about its genealogy. Reform has had various guises, beginning with UKIP in the early 1990s. It subsequently rebranded as the Brexit Party before becoming Reform in 2019. It’s always had a strong link to the Tory Right with many of its leading figures throughout its history are former Tories. Nigel Farage has been its figurehead for most of the past three decades. Farage himself is a former Tory, albeit media reports suggest he at least flirted with fascist ideas as a schoolboy.

Farage has always sought to distance Reform from the more obviously fascist formations in Britain, refusing to work with Tommy Robinson or support demonstrations by his organisations such as the EDL and more recently Unite the Kingdom. And links between Reform and the Tory Right have continued to the present day, with former Tory MPs such as Robert Jenrick, Suella Braverman, and Nadhim Zahawi joining the party over the past couple of years.

Nevertheless, where there have been far right demonstrations in the UK in recent years – whether that be in Southport following the murders of three children at a Taylor Swift-themed dance party, in Southampton following the murder of Henry Nowak, or in Belfast after an attempted murder by stabbing – Farage and his acolytes have been at the forefront of public discourse politicising these events and calling for public uproar.

What links these events is they were carried out by people of colour and Reform plays a crucial role in whipping up anti-migrant, anti-refugee, and Islamophobic sentiment which is reinforced on the streets.  In this sense, a symbiotic relationship exists between Reform and the street movements, in which the former amplifies and gives political expression to the latter, while the latter further fuels support for the former.

There has always been somewhat of a revolving door between fascist British parties like the British National Party and Reform and its predecessors. There is a complex picture of Reform as simultaneously a vehicle for the old Tory Right and something with somewhat of an organic relationship to British fascism.

Reform, then, is a far-right political party which is not overtly fascist but operates in tandem – sometimes formally, often informally – with fascists. Its policy programme suggests that, if elected, Reform would likely launch attacks on the free press, further limits to political demonstrations and the politicisation of the judiciary. It would be terrible news for working-class people across the board, with women, LGBTQ+ people, migrants, ethnic minorities, and Muslims particularly affected. It would likely make it more difficult to obtain an abortion, result in more limited access to fertility treatment, and see hard-earned rights for various oppressed groups attacked.

For socialists, this is a threat that needs serious attention, especially considering Reform has consistently been the biggest party in opinion polls for some time now and it was the biggest party at last month’s local elections. So, the question then arises: How do we defeat Reform? There are two aspects to this: electoral defeat and a wider, more permanent defeat.

Electoral defeat

When it comes to the question of defeating Reform, political commentators, much of academia, and the mainstream political parties tend to think in terms of winning in any given election. This undoubtedly matters because electoral victory for Reform is bad news for the vast majority of British people and bad news for socialists. And in this regard, there’s some good news: the anti-Farage vote is generally bigger than the pro-Farage vote. If the former can coalesce around a particular candidate or party, Reform should lose.

So here’s the problem. British voters have consistently opted for the change option in elections over the past decade. In the 2016 EU Referendum, that meant voting for Brexit. In 2019 it meant voting for Boris Johnson to ‘get Brexit done’. In 2024 that meant voting for Labour, whose entire message was it would be a government of change. Notwithstanding the contradictions of adopting at least some of these positions in the hope of change – Old Etonian and Oxbridge educated Johnson is as establishment as they come, and Labour’s manifesto was only one of change if words no longer have any meaning – people are fed up with the status quo.

The anti-Farage vote will need to coalesce around alternative options, which will be made more difficult by the fact most of those options promise more of the same. For a short while in 2024 and 2025 it looked like independent socialists might represent a viable alternative, but the 2026 local council elections were a sharp reality check. The Green Party is perhaps the best option for socialists right now, with Zack Polanski’s left populism going some way to identifying the electoral possibilities inherent in adopting such a programme. But as Elaine Graham-Leigh has recently argued, there are serious limits to what the Greens can achieve.

Even if the anti-Farage vote can successfully keep Reform out, it only kicks the can down the road. The French experience shows this, as the anti-far right vote – helped by the electoral system – is repeatedly made to vote for the anti-Le Pen candidate in the Presidential run-off to keep the far right out. But the far right keeps appearing on the ballot paper and keeps performing very well. Once the genie is out of the bottle, it’s very difficult to put it back in. At best, then, the electoral approach can only delay Reform. In and of itself it can’t land a lasting defeat.

A deeper defeat

Reform hasn’t risen from nowhere. In its various guises, it has been around for over three decades. Aside from the odd European election, it has, until recent years, only been able to play the role of pressuring the mainstream parties to adopt even stricter immigration policies to prevent them from losing votes. Farage himself unsuccessfully stood for parliament seven times before finally winning a seat in 2024.

Now Reform is a serious political party with genuine designs on forming the next government. That hasn’t happened in isolation. Various other forces, from the mainstream media to the traditional political parties to the far-right street movements, have played a role in facilitating the rise of Reform.

Defeating Reform will ultimately mean challenging and defeating the conditions that have led to its rise. Even with the right electoral vehicle, this can’t be done in parliament alone. The absence of such a party makes extra-parliamentary activity all the more important.

For socialists seeking to defeat Reform, it means doubling down and further expanding our activities of recent years. As much of the labour movement as possible must be mobilised to that end, and trade unions have an important role to play.

On economic issues, it means campaigning as a broad left for properly funding schools and hospitals, a welfare state that serves the needs of the public, and bringing key sectors such as mail, rail, and water into public ownership. These demands should be taken into our street actions against the far right, so we’re not only expressing our support for refugee rights and multiculturalism – important though these things are – but tying these positions to our economic demands.

The same applies to foreign policy issues. Our opposition to warfare is rooted in an anti-imperialist internationalism that understands imperial wars are based on class exploitation and division. The rearming of Europe and the huge increase in arms spending in the UK not only makes us all less safe. It also takes away public money that could be put to far better use. That’s why we call for Welfare not Warfare, Nurses not Nukes etc.

At the heart of everything is the anti-war movement. By far the most successful mobilising force on the British Left this century, it hits right at the heart of a key node of state power in Britain and a critical feature of this society. It’s no coincidence that most left-of-labour electoral victories in the 21st century have been closely tied to foreign policy matters, from the victories of George Galloway to the successes of independent socialists in 2024 and 2025. It’s on precisely these issues that the biggest demonstrations in London of the past 25 years have happened.

The continued growth of the Palestine movement and Stop the War Coalition is crucial, then, and socialists would do well to build branches in every area of the country. After all, we shouldn’t forget Israel has become a cause celebre for the far right in Britain, the Israeli flag and more recently the Iranian flag from the era of the Shah are widely seen on far-right demonstrations. It was no accident that Tommy Robinson called the most recent Unite the Kingdom demonstration on the date of the anniversary of the Nakba in recognition of the diametrically opposed politics of the two campaigns.

Defeating Reform means defeating anti-migration discourse, Islamophobia, and large far-right demonstrations. It also means defeating apathy and despair. This requires the full set of tools at the disposal of the labour movement and other forces with similar goals. In 2025, a Unite the Kingdom demonstration far outnumbered a counter-demo in London, a dire defeat for the left. Happily, that was reversed last month, with anti-racist and pro-Palestine demonstrators joining forces to outnumber the far right. This followed a large anti-racist demonstration organised by the Together Alliance in March. These movements and others bring hope. But there’s much work to do to land that lasting blow on the far right in Britain and push its forces into the margins.